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New Player's Guide Chapter 2: Unit Basics
In this chapter you will learn the basics of ground units. While there are many, many minuscule little details to the exact numbers used to determine the outcome of combat, you primarily need to know a little basic information to make your decisions for selecting units for combat. As stated in Chapter 1, a unit's color determines which group it is part of, such as the German army or the SS. There is other information displayed on the unit icon, including: Unit Size: The unit sizes are displayed as roman numerals at the top of the unit icon, and range from Battalion (II) to Army Group (XXXXX). When it comes to unit strength, the rule of thumb is that larger units tend to be stronger, but also require more supply, fuel and ammunition to remain effective. Unit Type: WitE uses various NATO symbols to represent its units. A full list is available in Appendix A of the game manual on page 307. For the purposes of this scenario, the main unit types you need to be aware of are: * Headquarters: the Headquarters units are at the same time the most necessary and most vulnerable units in the game. They distribute supplies to their subordinate units, but must remain within a certain proximity to their subordinates, and have no combat ability themselves. Keep them protected at all times! * Foot Infantry: Infantry are the backbone of your front line, allowing you to have boots on the ground to hold territory and provide a decent amount of push for attacking as well. * Mechanized: Infantry units carried by armored transports, these have a bot more punch and a lot more mobility than foot infantry, these are useful for filling in gaps in the front lines made by advancing armor units, but also can effectively be used on the offensive as well. * Armor: Units composed largely of tanks, these make for effective thrusts through the enemy's front lines to allow you to push through for encirclements and capture of victory points. * Air base: a staging area for your air force. Keep them safe from attack, but also within reasonable distance of your front lines. (Don't worry about your air force for now, it will be covered in a later chapter) * Mountain Infantry: Foot infantry trained to be more effective in mountain terrain, they move faster and fight more effectively in mountains than other units, who receive movement and combat penalties for doing so. * Security: Foot infantry that count double for the purposes of calculating partisan suppression in occupied Soviet territory (occupation and partisan suppression do not apply to this scenario) Below the NATO symbol is a set of numbers. The numbers displayed depends on the setting of the Unit Counter Info option in the User Preferences menu, under the Administration tab: * COMBAT: Offensive combat value and defensive combat value, separated by '=' (equals sign) *CV-MOVE: Offensive combat value and Movement value, separated by a '-' (minus sign) Each option has its own uses, but for this scenario, set the option to CV-MOVE as you will be mostly on the offensive. Now that you understand the unit icon, let's find a little more information about the units. Click on a hex containing one or more of your own units. On the right side of the screen you will see the unit sidebar appear. This provides some basic information on your units that is not shown on the unit icons: * Above the unit icon is the unit name, and below it is its assigned Headquarters unit, along with the distance and max command distance from that HQ in parentheses. * On the unit icon itself, notice that even if you have the CV-MOVE option selected, the numbers on the icon in the unit sidebar will be show as the COMBAT option. * To the right of the icon, you see three numbers, representing, from the top down, General Supplies, Fuel, and Ammunition. These are restocked by receiving supplies each turn. * Below the unit icon is the unit's Strategic Movement Points (SMPs). It will be covered later on when you learn how to transport units by rail. * Below that is the selection button for switching between various options, such as READY, REFIT, and RESERVE, which will be covered later in this guide. * Finally at the bottom you have a list of the number of men, artillery, and armored vehicles contained in the unit. Now that you know how to read your basic unit information, you can continue to the next chapter, which covers combat basics. Chapter 3: Combat Basics